Chapter Text
November 24th – one hour earlier
The video had gone viral.
For some absurd reason – Henry had never understood how the fuck social media worked or why people were so fascinated by it – a shaky shot of a forty-year-old man coming out of a party bathroom swabbing a bloody nose and the scathing commentary paired with an irritating tune had some inexplicable attraction for people.
Something made him suspect that the video had been ‘pushed’ through the right channels thanks to Vox and Valentino’s personal vendetta.
The fact is that it had taken just one day – less than twenty-four hours – for his face to end up in every TikTok algorithm from New York to New Zealand, passing directly through China.
In the afternoon, he also received a wonderful phone call from Lidia’s lawyer telling him that he had seen the video.
That’s it, nothing else.
He was officially screwed.
The image of him as a violent madman who causes fights at charity fundraisers – it wasn’t enough to be an alcoholic and a gambler, he had to go all in on this too – had also reached the ears of the social worker.
There had been no phone call this time, but a wonderful email in which he was officially informed that his case had been sufficiently examined and that the court would then issue a verdict in a month.
A fucking wonderful Christmas gift.
Something told him that he would see Caroline again with the binoculars, after that email.
He had tried to call Lidia a couple of times, but the moment he pressed the button and heard the phone ring, before she could even answer he had hung up.
And the fact that she hadn’t called him back was quite indicative of the effect that video had had on her as well.
He would have loved to spend the evening getting drunk until he forgot his name, exactly as he had done all day – or alternatively, gambling away what was left of his salary – but Zestiel had wanted to see him too.
Before his shift at the Coffre, he had had a rather humiliating conversation in the boss’s office, in which he was reminded – in simple terms – that he had been hired because Alastor had asked for a personal favor and because he had been presented as a reliable person; if he started brawling every time he had to resolve an issue, what reliability could he guarantee to carry out more discreet tasks?
Alastor, by the way, was sitting at Zestiel’s desk while Henry took the scolding, turning his back to him and avoiding his eyes.
As often happened when he wanted to punish him, he gave him the silent treatment.
Husk had remained standing, knuckles-bandaged hands behind his back and the serious and rigid look of someone who is used to lowering his head but had never really accepted it.
He had forgotten his pride at the bottom of a glass, but he still had his dignity.
More or less.
So, Henry had mumbled his apologies again – mainly addressed to Alastor, who had ignored him again – and had gone back behind the bar for an evening of miserable hangover, absolute boredom and self-pity.
He had turned off his phone at the twentieth notification in which various ‘someones’ he had rarely heard from had decided to pop out and text him ‘ hey are you the one from that video? How cool! ’ and he had closed himself in a dark silence.
What made the situation even worse there was what had happened that morning at dawn with Anthony.
It felt like a lifetime ago.
Henry stood there – arms folded, hips leaning on the cabinet behind the counter, amber gaze lost in the void – absentmindedly staring at the few customers that evening without really seeing them.
Are you in love with me?
“What a shitty question.”
Great, now he even started talking to himself. Maybe the alcohol had really burned his neurons.
The words Valentino had said to him in that bathroom came back, just like they had that morning; the ones that had blocked any answer in his throat.
He didn’t tell you, did he?
He had no right to get pissed off about something he himself did: keeping secrets.
Absolutely no right.
And yet.
Yet, there was that worm that had been gnawing at his thoughts for days and that Valentino had nourished with the insinuation that Anthony was hiding something from him.
What worried Husk the most – who in the meantime continued to stare absentmindedly at the few occupied tables – wasn’t the idea of a secret, or what that secret contained; the suspicion that Anthony used himself in other ways than just performing half naked in his ex’s club had occurred to him. He hadn’t dwelt on it much, nor did he find it a problem.
What had made Henry’s brain click was the idea that Valentino still controlled Anthony’s secrets; that he was just a temporary diversion, someone Tony was screwing because he had a whim and who would leave him in the lurch as soon as that fucking Puerto Rican pimp snapped his fingers.
He darkened further at the thought that a part of him, before this sort of relationship began, had hoped exactly that: that Anthony would get fed up and leave him alone.
The suspicion that after that morning's fight he would never see him again twisted his stomach in yet another bout of anger. Towards himself or the blond, it wasn't clear.
Are you in love with me?
Husk loosened his bow tie, swallowing the image of Anthony’s teary eyes and burning his tongue with the bitter feeling that he had done exactly what he promised himself not to do. That he had promised him , in a way, not to do.
I don’t want to hurt you.
“YOU!”
The background jazz music – there was no one playing, actually – served as a dissonant soundtrack to the exuberant entrance of a blonde with half-pink hair pulled back in a high ponytail, a bright red leather jacket and the look of having just come from an eighties punk-disco night.
Anthony’s friend.
Henry realized with confused delay that she had it in for him, considering that he watched her march towards the counter, closely followed by a tall, thin, gothic boy with long black hair, who was crumpling a hat in his hands and trying to make himself small while his explosive companion broke the Coffre’s quiet ready to take a swing at him.
Henry intercepted Tex’s questioning glance, but limited himself to shaking his head slowly and blocking any intervention.
He looked back at the girl just as, having reached the counter, she climbed onto the step to reach him and grab one of his braces to pull him closer.
Husk leaned forward, taken aback.
“What the fuck have you done to him, anh?”
“Cherri, maybe it’s not—”
“You fucked him and then threw him away like all the fucking men in his life do?!”
The goth boy blushed, trying to reach out and rest his hand on Cherri’s shoulder to calm her down, somehow.
Husk, numb from the remnants of the day’s alcohol, simply took her accusations.
“I don’t think it’s any of your business.”
“Damn if they are!” Cherri retorted, shrugging off the boy’s hand and reaching out to grab the second suspender and make Henry stagger again. “What, did you lock him in a fucking room with no cell phone?”
Henry frowned in confusion and annoyance, firmly grabbing Cherri’s wrists to pry her hands from his suspenders so he could straighten up.
“He’s probably busy somewhere.”
To forget me, as he should have done a couple of months ago.
“Sure, and he hasn’t found the time to answer me since this morning?”
The goth boy continued to wrinkle his hat and look around through the curtain of his long black hair, avoiding the politely puzzled glances of the other customers.
And they weren’t the only ones: Husk intercepted the burgundy jacket of Alastor’s suit appearing on the mezzanine, outside Zestiel’s office, before meeting his black, cold gaze.
The situation was getting really awkward really fast.
He cleared his throat.
“Listen, Chanel—”
“My name is Cherri, asshole.”
“Cherri, or whatever the fuck your name is, I have no idea where Anthony could be but I’m sure he’s fine, and frankly I don’t—”
A chat screen was shoved under his – broken – nose before he could continue.
Angie Bitch
hey. r u free? i need to do smth to not getting high
[...]
lemme erase these fugly feels
Henry blinked a couple of times, focusing on Anthony’s words as a wave of thoughts invaded his consciousness and slowly reversed his perspective. It was almost like seeing the whole picture: finding missing pieces, connecting the dots, starting to make sense of certain behaviors, first and foremost ‘no alcohol’.
Yet another secret he hadn’t told him about.
Who knows if Valentino controls this too.
Husker’s face darkened again, tugging at his amber eyes and staring at Cherri in a silent question; beneath the anger, that hint of worry imprinted in the curve of her lips made his fur metaphorically bristle and clear his mind a little.
“Have you tried going to his house?”
“Sure, dickhead, but he didn’t answer the door. I rang the bell for half an hour.”
“Then he probably wasn't home.”
“The lights were on.”
Something inside Husk started ticking, like a bomb, making him frown more in a dim concern that put the anger on hold.
Meanwhile, Zestiel had joined Alastor on the mezzanine – he watched him confabulate something with him and catch his gaze for a bit, silently.
Henry sighed heavily, returning to look at the girl and her unlikely companion.
“Cherri, I—”
“Tony told me you were the only one he introduced to his sister.”
Henry blinked, and remembered Sunday lunch: the discussion about the family recipe, the kiss Anthony had given him when no one was looking and a happy smile – so foolishly happy – that had warmed him all inside.
There, somewhere, where he thought he was no longer capable of feeling certain things.
He had lost it at the card table, the ability to love.
Right… ?
“I don’t know if you guys had a fight or if Tony is just being a drama queen as usual, but I know it’s not like him to ignore my calls and the amount of texts I’ve been sending him,” Cherri continued, seriously. “And I know that when he’s feeling shitty, he tends to do a lot stupid things.”
Henry just stared at her, searching deep inside that look for an answer to the question he wanted to ask but didn’t know where to start.
Cherri’s silence, in the jazzy club atmosphere, was rather eloquent.
I’m your goddamn experiment to try to be a decent partner for once in your shitty life?
Yeah, maybe he was.
Maybe Anthony was someone Husk would actually try to make an effort for, someone he could be better for.
Someone he could take care of.
Are you in love with me?
The butterflies in his stomach fluttered wildly, making Henry take a sharp, choked breath. It felt like he was breathing thick oxygen again, something that immediately went to his head and dilated all the noises.
Lucid, the hangover completely gone.
Suddenly, he was hugging Anthony again in that Brooklyn diner, swaying to a silly love song. He was in the kitchen full of sun and laughter of the Scavo house, he was in bed in his apartment telling him about Alastor, about Las Vegas, about Lidia.
I still haven’t told him that his left eye is green.
He looked back at Cherri, determined, intercepting behind her the silhouette of Zestiel overlooking the room, staring at him in a distant and indecipherable silence.
Alastor, next to him, narrowed his dark eyes in a silent threat.
If you walk out that door, don’t bother coming back.
“Oh, fuck it.” Henry muttered, looking back at Cherri. “You’re gonna do me a favor.”
November 24th – present
No New York taxi driver had ever seemed so slow to him.
And to think that Anthony’s house in the Village wasn’t that far from the Coffre – just three or four blocks away – but the feeling of time dilating had made the ride seem endless.
He had given the guy with the strong Eastern accent his money and had thrown himself out of the yellow car, hanging on the building’s intercom to get in.
No answer.
He had paced up and down the sidewalk for at least ten minutes, before taking advantage of the return of a rather tipsy couple and sneaking inside, taking the stairs two at a time to get more quickly to the second door on the fifth floor – he had left his lungs on the landing of the third, to be fair – and started knocking.
Again, no answer.
If Cherri was right, the creeping suspicion that he knew exactly who was holding Anthony up froze the blood in his veins.
He swallowed a lump of guilt – bitter on his tongue – and knocked again.
He pricked up his ears as a very muffled sound came from the other end.
A moan?
He frowned and put his ear to the door, listening better.
No, a sob.
“Anthony?!” Husk didn’t bother to keep his voice low, even at this unlikely hour, banging his fist against the wood a couple of times again. “Anthony, are you okay?”
The sobbing disappeared, replaced by another muffled sound that disturbingly resembled the one he had heard in the dressing room the first time he had met – without knowing it – Valentino.
An annoyed murmur in Spanish sent a rush of anger through his brain.
Henry saw red. Again.
He slammed his fist against the door, once, with peremptory violence.
“Open the fucking door!”
A soft sound, that of someone who had probably moved closer to listen better.
“If you don’t open up, you piece of shit, I swear I’ll call the police first and then I’ll just break it down. Open up.” A first kick. “This. Fucking. Door.” a kick with each word.
More doors opened, on the same fifth floor landing, and confused and sleepy residents looked out.
A tall, lanky man with gray hair – though he looked younger than Husk – and a slightly aquiline nose, wearing a burgundy silk robe and a pair of bunny slippers that he had time to notice, tied his robe and scanned the scene with a puzzled expression.
“Is everything alright?”
Henry didn’t even have time to answer when a familiar face appeared behind him, just because New York is too small: a rather short guy, with a black mullet, the right side of his face full of burn scars. Except for the fact that this time he was only wearing boxers with one hand idly scratching his balls, he was definitely the shortie brawler from Black Dot.
Great.
“Stols, go back to bed,” he yawned. “Leave these fags to deal with their fucking business.”
The audacity of such a statement made Henry’s left eyebrow rise with the face of someone who was saying ‘are you for real’.
The aforementioned ‘Stols’ looked at Husker one last time, in a silent question, and the latter shook his head slowly; he didn't need help, not yet.
The door closed.
He went back to knocking repeatedly, ignoring the racket he was making.
When other voices and other questions were added, coming from the landings of the lower floors, finally the door opened: in a nervous sprint, Henry only had time to glimpse a hand reaching out for his wrist and yanking him inside, immediately closing it with an annoyed thud.
“Cállate, cabrón, you woke up the whole fucking building.”
He didn’t even need the sweet smell of Valentino’s red smoke to confirm that he had been there for a long time. In the soft light of the pink and purple lights, it gave everything an even more surreal atmosphere.
Henry yanked his wrist out of her grasp and looked around.
“Where is he.”
“Who?” Valentino asked innocently, curving a smile that glimmered gold. “That little slut you’ve been screwing since you came to my club?”
Husk reached out with his right hand to grab the collar of his unbuttoned black shirt, roughly, leaning in close to his face and practically growling at him.
“The lesson I gave you the other night wasn’t enough for you?”
Valentino laughed – a husky, sensual laugh – taking a puff of red smoke and blowing it in his face.
Henry coughed and let go.
“Oh, about that . Expect a letter of complaint for assault from my lawyer, even though Voxy told me you’re in deep shit already. He plays golf with your wife’s divorce attorney.”
The ground sank under Husk’s feet a little more, while Valentino casually rearranged his shirt.
“Let’s see when you can see your daughter again. By the way—” he pouted, letting ashes fall directly to the floor. “What would your niña say if she knew you were having fun with another man instead of putting your pathetic little family back together?”
A fierce rush of anger made his breathing quicken again and his fists clench.
He remembered last night, all the times Alastor had scolded him for being impulsive, and miraculously he managed to stop himself.
“I asked you where he is.”
Val sighed, looking exasperated, pointing lazily to the door further on: the bathroom.
Husk shoved him away, not caring that he was considerably shorter than him, and turned the handle down. Locked.
“Tony?”
A moan from the other end, mixed with an incredulous and slightly stuttering question.
“He— Henry?”
“It’s me, baby.”
Something broke somewhere, deep in his throat, hearing him like that.
Suddenly, the fierce fight of last morning seemed so far away.
“Are you okay? Why are you locked in—”
“Henry, go away!” Angel interrupted, coughing.
The refusal stung like salt on an open wound, but Tony continued before giving him time to respond in any way.
“Go away, Valent—”
The sound of glass breaking. Pain. The vision that gets blurry. A blow to the back of the head.
Knees hitting the floor. The pain exploding more vividly, like a lash chewing on nerves, as something resembling blood begins to trickle down his neck.
“You son of a bitch,” Husk hissed, bringing both hands to his head and twisting the neck in a spasm of nausea to focus on Valentino behind him; precisely, on the object with which he had just hit him: what was left of a bottle.
Henry had begun to suspect that his end would be tied to a bottle, but he certainly didn’t imagine it that way.
Do you even have time to joke, Husker?
Anthony yelled something from inside the bathroom, but it was getting really hard to concentrate at that point, especially with his head wound throbbing and Valentino looking determined to hit him again.
Henry blocked the kick aimed at his face by crossing his arms in front of his face but felt the sole of the man’s designer boot violently plant itself against his forearms, making them creak.
Without hesitation, he twisted his wrist to grab Val’s ankle and yank it in an attempt to make him fall: he managed to at least make him unbalanced, so he could punch him straight in the knee.
The scream of pain and Spanish rage was followed by that of Anthony still locked in the bathroom, accompanied by a sort of metallic noise.
From then on, events became decidedly confusing: he found himself in a tangle of limbs and tissue, long arms and legs, without really being able to understand where he began and where Val ended.
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, he was brawling with the same man.
Who knows, maybe it’s a record.
When he hit his head on the floor again, giving another blow to the previous wound, another lash of pain threatened to turn his stomach inside out; he found himself on his back, Valentino straddling him with his hands wrapped around his throat and starving for oxygen.
As he felt those fingers press against his carotid artery, unable to actually push him away no matter how hard he tried, darkness began to creep on the edges of his vision; his lungs screamed for air and a part of him was very indignant that the last thing he would see would be the furious growl of a Puerto Rican pimp choking him.
What a fucking end you’re going to, Henry Husker.
Just as he was about to pass out, two things happened: the umpteenth sound of glass breaking – glass that rained down on him along with a shower of tequila, judging by the taste – and the return of oxygen.
Valentino’s fingers stopped applying pressure and a breath made Henry cough several times, sucking air into his sore throat with the relish of someone who had almost forgotten how to breathe.
His head was throbbing like hell, but he managed to crawl out from under Valentino just in time to see Anthony in only a sort of black miniskirt and nothing else on, his makeup smudged, his face swollen with fists and his left wrist half-skinned but the menacing look of someone who can perfectly take care of himself.
Especially if he’s holding a Yankees-signed baseball bat.
It was the bravest and most fearless sight he had ever seen.
Husk remained slumped on the ground, half propped up on his elbows, watching Valentino rub his head, his braided hair dripping with tequila and a little blood from the wound, and cursing in thick Spanish.
“Get the fuck outta my house.” the blond growled, gripping the bat. “I used tequila before, let’s see what happens to your head with this, anh?”
Before Val could actually respond, the wailing sirens’ sound announced the police’s arrival; considering the racket they’d made, it had been someone else in the building who called them.
Valentino stood up half limping, still rubbing his head and thrusting a glare at Henry with a slow, menacing smile.
A little bit of gold, a little bit of blood.
“See you around, gatito.” he then slid over to Anthony, and that smile was tinged with excitement. “You know you always make me hard, when you play hard to get.” was his goodbye.
He disappeared out the door and down the stairs, jostling the onlookers who had come out of their apartments attracted by the fighting noise in Anthony’s and disappearing before he could be stopped.
Henry, still on the ground, watched the blond’s hands shake as they gripped the bat again and chuckled in disbelief – and quite shocked – at what had just happened.
“I never imagined I’d have to thank Daniel.”
Husk wanted so badly to thank Daniel too, but the darkness began to grip his consciousness.
The double bounce of the bat on the floor, Anthony’s bare feet on broken glasses – you’ll hurt yourself, babe, be careful – reaching him.
“Hey hey hey , Husky, let me see.”
Gentle fingers carded through his salt-and-pepper, slightly sticky hair.
More blood and more tequila.
A painful breath held between his teeth.
“You need stitches. Easy, huh? It’s okay.”
Henry closed his eyes, in a sore moan, as Anthony’s fingers smoothed his locks back from his sweaty forehead.
Nothing is okay, love.
The last thing he managed to grasp were mixed voices. Footsteps. More crunching of glass.
My. Love.
The cherry scent of Anthony’s skin. His hands. Someone moving him.
And then, it all shut down.